I generally agree with you, but don't think that "Giving your life for something intentionally is the very opposite of cowardly" is necessarily true.
If, as in the case of at least some of the "suicide" bombers, someone believes they actually get a net personal benefit (eternal life in paradise or something stupid like that) by blowing themselves up for the cause, the act doesn't show bravery (arguably, the opposite of being cowardly).
I'd rather have a fusible link somewhere in the energy delivery pipeline that kicks in at 999 degrees F. Although, I guess it would be cool to see just what happened to the 5 digit display as the oven it was attached to got up around 2000 degrees F.
Who needs thermite if your home oven can reach 10,000 degrees F?
Reminds me of "back in the days" of the early mass market terminals that allowed you to program keys to send sequences of arbitrary characters.
One of the system admins at school was trying out the latest and greatest such beast in his office before deploying it and thought it was a good idea to program F1 to send his userid and password. He also thought that the terminal would not retain the memory when he unplugged it to deploy the device to the public terminal room.
He learned that two stupid thoughts can be much worse than one stupid standalone thought.
Just make the button detect authorized fingerprints only and require a heartbeat in the finger and also scan the operator's retina and alter lighting to make sure that the iris responds "correctly" to random changes in light level.
Bet you can't circumvent that with just duct tape. Now, with an Arduino, some peripheral hardware and a few spare evenings....
Well, pictures in PB did show a bit more effort WRT lighting, focus, airbrushing, and Vaseline on the lens (that was Vaseline wasn't it?) than most of those other 10K pics you mention (or so I've been told). So for those who prefer the stylized idealized experience, maybe PB is a better bet.
Oh, you can be sure they did run - they just act as if they didn't so you won't think of them when your ISP cuts you off for violating the TOS WRT SPAM.
It's just about enough to make me buy an AMD based system instead of an Intel based system as that saves that maddening 'this system looks good... but oh, I need to go over to the Intel web site to figure out if it supports VT - wait, what was that processor number again" dance.
I hate Intel's artificial market segmentation. Reminds me of the 'good old days' [NOT] when you tried to figure out how to get a copy of the "fast" microcode for your mainframe rather than the "slow" one with the wait loops that you got because you bought a Model N instead of the (internally identical) Model N+1.
I am working on the (I fear, incorrect) assumption that the entire line (all x00 miles) will be protected by effective fences, motion sensors, cameras etc. If not, I personally would be very hesitant to get on a train going 220 MPH.
It's much easier and less intrusive (albeit, expensive) to exclude the public from an area than to verify that only "safe" people are in a public area. It's fairly easy to exclude unscreened people from the tarmac at LAX and that process intrudes little on the end user (i.e., passengers). The same can not be said for the interior of the plane.
Re:Perl has died in industry (mod away, kids)
on
Perl 5.11.0 Released
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· Score: 3, Funny
Kids today... Who writes in C? Real Programmers write everything in assembly - all those fancy "volatile" and "restrict" constructs are just cruft required because they couldn't find Real Programmers who didn't need stinking optimizers. Java... don't even get me started - support for synchronization IN A LANGUAGE - that's just silly talk.
Externalities work both ways - both negative and positive.
There are many beneficial externalities of a robust road system.
For example, it gets food to market cheaper and faster and reduces spoilage. This means that people spend a smaller percentage of their time working to feed themselves and can pay for things like education or, at the limit, just be able to afford necessary nourishment. The reduction in spoilage means the labor that was devoted to raising that food that was wasted can instead be directed at other pursuits such as medical care.
Similarly, a robust road system helps make it practical to deliver a variety of products at low prices to retail outlets near your home as part of an efficiency of scale strategy that reduces the labor content of both manufacturing and delivery processes. While some people don't want any material goods, most people do want some and feel that they benefit from the availability of these at lower prices.
And, remember to count the lives saved when someone can be transported to a well equipped hospital in an emergency more quickly on roads than being dragged on a sled by hand over muddy dirt trails.
Also, I'd wager that where the bullet train is going to share right of way w/CalTrain, the construction costs will be increased substantially just because they need to keep CalTrain running nearly continuously while they "build around" it. I don't know how they plan on doing it, but I suspect one will see various temporary realignments of tracks and the like while the final thing is built.
Will the train entice people who were not previously traveling to do so? If not, then the train must be MORE labor intensive than existing means of transportation that are being displaced -- remember all the jobs that would be lost by reduced auto and air travel must be replaced before the first net job is created by the train.
Presumably, with the reduction in car and air miles caused by the bullet train, people in many jobs will see layoffs. This would include aircraft mechanics, flight attendants, baggage handlers, fuel truck drivers, auto mechanics, new and used car salespeople (cars that are not driven as much last longer), gas station attendants along Hwy 5.
Maybe a passenger mile on the train, suffering under union work rules, will require a lot more manpower than a passenger mile on an airplane or car, but then I somehow don't think the "per trip" fare estimates seem all that reasonable.
Oh well, maybe California needs their own Big Dig - but we can do Boston one better because our project will have much higher operating costs! Cool!
total government expenditures (federal, state, and local) on highways were almost $100 billion [...]. Please, please try to tell me that this doesn't constitute a massive subsidy [...] to trucking and other industries that depend on highways for their existence.
Just curious, did you happen to think to look up usage based revenues like gas tax, registration fees, etc.? Just asking...
If the government built the water system you get your water from and funds its construction and ongoing maintenance with a "per gallon used" fee, it's not a "subsidy".
Are you thinking that each trip only takes 1 person? Now that would be a boondoggle!
This is California after all. Probably some work rules will sneak into the Amalgamated Transit Union contracts that prohibit more than one passenger per train.
Agreed on segregating by demonstrated ability/interest - it's stupid to waste smart kids' time by forcing them to the stupid kids' pace, just as it's stupid to overwhelm stupid kids by forcing them to the smart kids' pace.
However, the notion that "The best brains" should be grouped together and "given the most attention" doesn't seem right. It's the smart motivated kids that need relatively little attention (although, one may want to pay extra attention to them sometimes - such as in Chem lab where their more inquisitive minds might yield some unfortunate experiments with unintended consequences). The kids in the lower tracks need more attention - help and/or motivational. Kids who don't care (usually meaning their parent(s) don't really care or understand) -- well, no use wasting resources lavishing attention on them. Horse to water and all that...
I made the mistake of taking an entire course which was entirely reading and (endlessly) analyzing Ulysses. To this day, I wonder why I thought that was a good idea.
The professor had, of course, done his PhD dissertation on Ulysses and knew the frigging page numbers of every damned (ir)relevant detail. It was truly scary.
As a comparison, 2 model Ts could collide head on at full speed with no significant damage.
That seems unlikely if Wikipedia is to be believed. At a top speed of 40-45 MPH and a weight of 1200 pounds it seems unlikely to me that the body and frame would fare well.
However, perhaps they should have done a 2009 Ford $Something crash into a 1909 Model T to show the improvements over the past 100 years.
Umm... Why don't they institute an income tax? Perhaps because they realize that this action would reduce the attraction of Washington State for business? So, MS has been successful - why should a business in France have to, effectively, pay Washington State sales tax when they buy MS Office (yech)? Washington made a decision decades ago, Microsoft stayed/migrated there, in part, because of this. Fine, implement an income tax NOW, but not retroactively. If Washington is such a neat place, MS programmers will happily take a 10% income hit to stay there.
Such problems probably should be considered a product defect and, since the real cost of propagating the fix is so small and the problem may affect safety or emissions, perhaps the manufacturers should be required to pay for (and/or reimbursing dealers fully) for applying such upgrades to any car whose owner requests it.
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I generally agree with you, but don't think that "Giving your life for something intentionally is the very opposite of cowardly" is necessarily true.
If, as in the case of at least some of the "suicide" bombers, someone believes they actually get a net personal benefit (eternal life in paradise or something stupid like that) by blowing themselves up for the cause, the act doesn't show bravery (arguably, the opposite of being cowardly).
Thanks but no thanks.
I'd rather have a fusible link somewhere in the energy delivery pipeline that kicks in at 999 degrees F. Although, I guess it would be cool to see just what happened to the 5 digit display as the oven it was attached to got up around 2000 degrees F.
Who needs thermite if your home oven can reach 10,000 degrees F?
Reminds me of "back in the days" of the early mass market terminals that allowed you to program keys to send sequences of arbitrary characters.
One of the system admins at school was trying out the latest and greatest such beast in his office before deploying it and thought it was a good idea to program F1 to send his userid and password. He also thought that the terminal would not retain the memory when he unplugged it to deploy the device to the public terminal room.
He learned that two stupid thoughts can be much worse than one stupid standalone thought.
Just make the button detect authorized fingerprints only and require a heartbeat in the finger and also scan the operator's retina and alter lighting to make sure that the iris responds "correctly" to random changes in light level.
Bet you can't circumvent that with just duct tape. Now, with an Arduino, some peripheral hardware and a few spare evenings....
Well, pictures in PB did show a bit more effort WRT lighting, focus, airbrushing, and Vaseline on the lens (that was Vaseline wasn't it?) than most of those other 10K pics you mention (or so I've been told). So for those who prefer the stylized idealized experience, maybe PB is a better bet.
Oh, you can be sure they did run - they just act as if they didn't so you won't think of them when your ISP cuts you off for violating the TOS WRT SPAM.
It's just about enough to make me buy an AMD based system instead of an Intel based system as that saves that maddening 'this system looks good ... but oh, I need to go over to the Intel web site to figure out if it supports VT - wait, what was that processor number again" dance.
I hate Intel's artificial market segmentation. Reminds me of the 'good old days' [NOT] when you tried to figure out how to get a copy of the "fast" microcode for your mainframe rather than the "slow" one with the wait loops that you got because you bought a Model N instead of the (internally identical) Model N+1.
I am working on the (I fear, incorrect) assumption that the entire line (all x00 miles) will be protected by effective fences, motion sensors, cameras etc. If not, I personally would be very hesitant to get on a train going 220 MPH.
It's much easier and less intrusive (albeit, expensive) to exclude the public from an area than to verify that only "safe" people are in a public area. It's fairly easy to exclude unscreened people from the tarmac at LAX and that process intrudes little on the end user (i.e., passengers). The same can not be said for the interior of the plane.
Kids today... Who writes in C? Real Programmers write everything in assembly - all those fancy "volatile" and "restrict" constructs are just cruft required because they couldn't find Real Programmers who didn't need stinking optimizers. Java... don't even get me started - support for synchronization IN A LANGUAGE - that's just silly talk.
Externalities work both ways - both negative and positive.
There are many beneficial externalities of a robust road system.
For example, it gets food to market cheaper and faster and reduces spoilage. This means that people spend a smaller percentage of their time working to feed themselves and can pay for things like education or, at the limit, just be able to afford necessary nourishment. The reduction in spoilage means the labor that was devoted to raising that food that was wasted can instead be directed at other pursuits such as medical care.
Similarly, a robust road system helps make it practical to deliver a variety of products at low prices to retail outlets near your home as part of an efficiency of scale strategy that reduces the labor content of both manufacturing and delivery processes. While some people don't want any material goods, most people do want some and feel that they benefit from the availability of these at lower prices.
And, remember to count the lives saved when someone can be transported to a well equipped hospital in an emergency more quickly on roads than being dragged on a sled by hand over muddy dirt trails.
Please share with us the secret of how you're avoiding fuel taxes, registration fees and the like - neat trick to make those roads free.
Also, I'd wager that where the bullet train is going to share right of way w/CalTrain, the construction costs will be increased substantially just because they need to keep CalTrain running nearly continuously while they "build around" it. I don't know how they plan on doing it, but I suspect one will see various temporary realignments of tracks and the like while the final thing is built.
Agreed.
Will the train entice people who were not previously traveling to do so? If not, then the train must be MORE labor intensive than existing means of transportation that are being displaced -- remember all the jobs that would be lost by reduced auto and air travel must be replaced before the first net job is created by the train.
Presumably, with the reduction in car and air miles caused by the bullet train, people in many jobs will see layoffs. This would include aircraft mechanics, flight attendants, baggage handlers, fuel truck drivers, auto mechanics, new and used car salespeople (cars that are not driven as much last longer), gas station attendants along Hwy 5.
Maybe a passenger mile on the train, suffering under union work rules, will require a lot more manpower than a passenger mile on an airplane or car, but then I somehow don't think the "per trip" fare estimates seem all that reasonable.
Oh well, maybe California needs their own Big Dig - but we can do Boston one better because our project will have much higher operating costs! Cool!
Just curious, did you happen to think to look up usage based revenues like gas tax, registration fees, etc.? Just asking...
If the government built the water system you get your water from and funds its construction and ongoing maintenance with a "per gallon used" fee, it's not a "subsidy".
Only until someone figures out an interesting way of getting a 220 MPH train to derail by blowing up the right part from inside.
This is California after all. Probably some work rules will sneak into the Amalgamated Transit Union contracts that prohibit more than one passenger per train.
In California, we go to the polls to vote on which bid for toilet paper the DMV should accept. ...or at least it seems that way sometimes.
Agreed on segregating by demonstrated ability/interest - it's stupid to waste smart kids' time by forcing them to the stupid kids' pace, just as it's stupid to overwhelm stupid kids by forcing them to the smart kids' pace.
However, the notion that "The best brains" should be grouped together and "given the most attention" doesn't seem right. It's the smart motivated kids that need relatively little attention (although, one may want to pay extra attention to them sometimes - such as in Chem lab where their more inquisitive minds might yield some unfortunate experiments with unintended consequences). The kids in the lower tracks need more attention - help and/or motivational. Kids who don't care (usually meaning their parent(s) don't really care or understand) -- well, no use wasting resources lavishing attention on them. Horse to water and all that...
I did finish it.
I made the mistake of taking an entire course which was entirely reading and (endlessly) analyzing Ulysses. To this day, I wonder why I thought that was a good idea.
The professor had, of course, done his PhD dissertation on Ulysses and knew the frigging page numbers of every damned (ir)relevant detail. It was truly scary.
They were probably looking for God (or angels or Heaven or, more likely, pornographic constellations).
That seems unlikely if Wikipedia is to be believed. At a top speed of 40-45 MPH and a weight of 1200 pounds it seems unlikely to me that the body and frame would fare well.
However, perhaps they should have done a 2009 Ford $Something crash into a 1909 Model T to show the improvements over the past 100 years.
Has she figured out yet why her MS doc files format like shit in Open Office?
Umm... Why don't they institute an income tax? Perhaps because they realize that this action would reduce the attraction of Washington State for business? So, MS has been successful - why should a business in France have to, effectively, pay Washington State sales tax when they buy MS Office (yech)? Washington made a decision decades ago, Microsoft stayed/migrated there, in part, because of this. Fine, implement an income tax NOW, but not retroactively. If Washington is such a neat place, MS programmers will happily take a 10% income hit to stay there.
Such problems probably should be considered a product defect and, since the real cost of propagating the fix is so small and the problem may affect safety or emissions, perhaps the manufacturers should be required to pay for (and/or reimbursing dealers fully) for applying such upgrades to any car whose owner requests it.